Waiting in the Wings
by Beckles1987
Summary: How Audrey ended up married to a boy she couldn't stand, with a plot that begins before Philospoher's Stone and extends beyond Deathly Hallows, weaving in and out of all the books inbetween.


**A/N: A short while ago I decided to give Harry Potter fanfiction a go. I didn't want to write anything that revolved around Harry, Ron or Hermione because every permutation of every possible plot has probably already been written, well, adequately and poorly. I ended up on the Harry Potter wikia...because doesn't everybody eventually...and happened upon Audrey Weasley's page. Besides the fact that she married Percy and had Molly and Lucy with him, there is no information about her whatsoever, so I'm going to fill in the blanks, weaving the stories around canon and showing what could legitimately have happened in the background while Harry, Ron and Hermione were centre-stage kicking arse and taking Horcruxes. Though the stories won't necessarily be in chronological order.**

**While I'm going to try my best to stay faithful to the world and characters J.K. Rowling has created, some of my special brand of crazy is bound to leak into my writing so the eagle-eyed reader may spot any number of references to other fandoms, shows, books etc.**

**And one last thing, I do not and will not, in any way, profit from this story. All creative rights to the characters from the Harry Potter series belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. It's their world, I'm just playing in it.**

**Also available at audrey - weasley . livejournal . com  
**

* * *

**Title: Secrets and Sacrifices**

**Characters/Pairings: Penelope/Percy, Audrey & Penelope friendship**

**Rating: K+ for language**

**Word Count: 982**

**Summary: Set near the end of Philosopher's Stone. Penelope Clearwater has something she needs to get off her chest.**

* * *

When Penelope walked into the dorm room, Audrey was sat cross-legged on her bed finishing a critique of Terry's History of Magic essay, for a slightly discounted price. Her curiosity was piqued when, instead of sitting on the bed, Penelope just played with the edges of the bedding. With a flick of her wand Audrey put the homework away and devoted her full attention to her friend…who remained silent.

"Pen, if there's something you want to share, words would help. Legilimency is not one of my many, many, many talents." The smile that flickered to life on Penelope's face went a long way to assuage any worry Audrey felt about her friend being so uncharacteristically quiet. Whatever it was, it wasn't anything bad. The older girl sat on the edge of the bed and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly.

"Ok, if I tell you something, will you promise to keep it a secret?" This was going to be good, Penelope never had secrets. While she was one of Audrey's very best friends, despite being the year above her, she had to admit that Penny was almost too perfect at times. It wasn't that her grades were too good, they were both Ravenclaws, good grades were par for the course. It was that she was too nice, too well behaved, there were no personal failings, no mistakes…she hadn't lost a single house point in her entire time at Hogwarts. Sometimes being her friend was bloody infuriating.

"Definitely…unless lives are at stake. Are lives at stake?" Not for the first time, Audrey surprised a laugh out of Penelope.

"What? No, of course not." Penelope looked down at the floor for a moment, her cheeks becoming noticeably pink. "I just got asked out."

"Bloody hell…I didn't see that coming. I mean, of course boys are going to ask you out but I didn't even know you liked anybody. Who was it?"

"Promise me you won't tell anybody." It was going to be a struggle to keep it from her dorm mates, she did spend almost every waking hour with them and they were all rather gossip-y, but Penelope had never really asked much of her before and if she couldn't keep one secret, she shouldn't call herself Penelope's friend.

"I promise."

"Swear by the lost diadem." Now she was worried all over again, that was a pretty serious oath for a Ravenclaw to make. The diadem held great significance for everybody in their house, not least the Grey Lady. Few mentioned it in case she overheard and was hurt.

"Merlin's beard, it's not a teacher is it?" However ludicrous, it was the first scenario that popped into her mind.

"No," she laughed, more out of shock that amusement. "Have you been inhaling your potions again? He's in my year. He just doesn't want to get teased."

"Who'd get teased for going out with you?" Penelope looked at her like she'd just said something profoundly stupid…for a Hufflepuff. "Ok, ok. I swear by Rowena Ravenclaw's lost diadem that I won't reveal the identity of your boyfriend to anybody without your prior approval."

"It's Percy Weasley."

"Oh." Those twin brothers of his made Terry look like an angel so discretion made sense, but nothing else did. She couldn't even pretend to know what any girl would see in the Gryffindor prefect. "Why did you say yes? If you don't mind me asking, he's such a…pompous, pretentious, prigg."

"Audrey!"

"I know you're a prefect too but he's the embodiment of why some students don't like you."

"There's more to him than that, you know." Ha! Penelope hadn't disagreed with her.

"Actually, I don't know."

"Give him a chance, you'll be surprised." There was no arguing with her, there never was, especially when she was right…which pretty much all the time. Maybe not now though. Still, Penelope was not one to be gainsaid.

"Fine. For your sake, I will stop offering to remove the stick up his arse." Seeing his angry red face clash with his ginger hair had always been a highlight of whichever day she caught him being his usual pedantic self, she'd just have to find a new way to needle him, something subtler.

"I appreciate your sacrifice."

"Yeah well, you keep my…enterprising nature…under wraps so I guess I owe you." Although Audrey was almost positive Professor Dumbledore knew what she was up to, the man was a genius after all, Penelope had helped her keep her rather profitable little scheme from anybody who might feel compelled to make a big deal out of it. Percy Weasley, unsurprisingly, was the first person that came to mind, the only person really, except Professor McGonagall, who just happened to be his head of house. Befriending him was going to be as fun as History of Magic on a Friday afternoon.

"Try to get along with Percy, really try, and I'll consider us even."

"When you put it like that, how could I possibly refuse?"

"You can't, that's kind of the point." Deciding to be peeved at having to be nice to somebody who annoyed her by existing when Penelope had left the room, Audrey focused on her friend having a new boyfriend and tried to forget who he actually was.

"So…have you kissed him yet?" Penelope went back to studying the bedding.

"Mmm hmm."

"And?"

"And what?" The bemused expression on Penelope's face failed to fool Audrey, she was the cleverest person in her year and Penelope knew exactly what she was asking.

"Have you never had this conversation before? I want details!"

"At first it was kind of awkward, but then…I don't know…we seemed to get the hang of it." From the colour of her friend's cheeks, Audrey took that to be something of a understatement.

"Percy Weasley, ladies' man. Who'd have thought it?" Audrey caught her eye and they both collapsed into helpless giggles.


End file.
